No Safeword: Matte - Happily Ever After (Safewords) (3 page)

“Come on,” Ethan said about fifteen seconds into the kiss. “Let’s give them some privacy.”

“To be honest, I was hoping to head to bed soon.” Especially after watching Frisco kiss Cassie had her own pulse beginning to race, but she decided Ethan would be better off without that particular piece of information.

“Go on up,” he said. “I’ll hang out and lock up when they come in. They might go home, or might take me up on my offer.”

Sam’s exhaustion trumped her arousal, and she fell asleep soon after crawling into bed. She didn’t know how long she slept before Ethan joined her, but he woke her and took her from behind before snuggling in and going to sleep.

* * * *

Frisco and Cassie were gone when Sam awakened the next morning, and Ethan told her they’d gone to the playroom the night before, but he didn’t know what had happened afterwards.

Sam texted both Cassie and Frisco with, “Call me.”

It was nearly eleven when Frisco texted her to see if he could meet her for lunch. She had him bring take-out from the Greek deli around the corner to her office, where they could talk in private.

“I told you I don’t do that stuff with girls, Chica.” Frisco said as Sam closed her office door behind him.

“No, you said you don’t get rough with girls. You
can
do the D/s without the S&M, you know.”

Sam followed him to her conference table, accepted her food, and began unwrapping it.

Frisco didn’t say anything and Sam said, “Just tell me she’s okay today, Frisco.”

He nodded. “She’s good. I made it good for her.”

“Was it good for you?”

Frisco glared at her and she said, “If you’re this conflicted it must’ve been incredible.”

He rolled his eyes and she chuckled. “I think you’ve been raised on a good helping of Catholic guilt, and your primary role models were women. Your mama taught you women are to be treasured and you’ve taken her words to heart, which is a good thing.”

“Men aren’t supposed to hit women.”

“Not unless they consent to it, and get off on it, but your mother and grandmother aren’t going to tell you that part of it.” Sam wrinkled her nose. “Parents and kids aren’t supposed to have
those
kinds of conversations.”

“What exactly did Cassie say to you last night?”

Sam ran the conversation through her mind. “She told me she hadn’t been able to look at you during dinner because she was afraid everyone would see how much she wanted you, and what she wanted from you. She said she wanted to be Cameron on the leash.”

Sam took her first bite, swallowed, and added, “She’d looked some stuff up, but thought the online scenes looked mean. I think she was a little starry-eyed over the way Cam and I danced, too. Apparently some part of her psyche recognized Cam and I are the same, but she couldn’t figure it out.”

Frisco nodded and she continued. “I asked her if she’d be okay dating someone who whips men, and paddles them, and makes them clean his house and wash his car. She said that’d be great as long as she got to watch. She also liked the idea of them being ordered to give her massages and wash her car, too.”

Frisco laughed and shook his head and Sam said, “You’ve never considered the idea of a woman who might be okay with knowing who you truly are?”

“No. What kind of a woman could like…”

He trailed off and Sam answered, “I could probably introduce you to a half a dozen off the top of my head, more if I put some thought into it.”

When he didn’t respond, Sam took a breath and continued. “I think she said something about needing to know she’d meet everyone you played with, and could watch sometimes. I got the idea she’d want to do more than watch.” Sam raised her eyebrows. “How do you feel about playing with a submissive man and woman at the same time?”

He rolled his eyes at her and Sam said, “I pointed out she’s turned you down so many times you may never ask her out again, and she said you hadn’t flirted with her since my bachelorette party.”

“Did she tell you to put her on her knees in front of me?”

She ignored his grumpy attitude and answered with a smile. “Nope, I gave her the speech about the lifestyle requiring you be completely and totally honest with your partner, and told her if she wanted to be Cameron on the leash she’d have to tell you. I got the impression she wasn’t likely to tell you —
ever
— so I told her I’d see if you’d explain the kink to her, to get the conversation started.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You have a helluva way of getting a conversation started.”

“Why hasn’t Cassie returned my text? Should I be worried?”

He looked at his watch. “I haven’t been to sleep yet. She went home and crashed.”

Sam took a breath. “Okay, don’t provide details you aren’t comfortable giving, but please at least give me a rough outline of how things went?”

He shook his head again. “It’s like she was just waiting for someone to come along and give her orders. I stuck to mostly sensation play, and since she’d already talked about the blindfold…” He shrugged and continued. “When I thought the scene should end, I brought her back slowly and then took her to Waffle House around three this morning. We dropped her car off at her house and drove up Lookout Mountain, and were on the View Trail in time to see the sunrise.”

“And you talked there until you took her home and put her to bed?”

He nodded. “Her phone died, and when you texted me I called one of my managers to get them to go in for me, and let her use my phone to call in. We talked a few more hours before I took her home, tucked her into bed, and locked the door on my way out.”

“What did the two of you talk about?”

“I got a complete rundown of how she felt about every aspect of our time in your playroom — the parts she loved, the parts she’s not too sure about. We talked about her mom, her dad, her therapist, the relationship she has with both parents now.”

“Did you talk about your mom, your sisters, how you felt about the scene?”

“No, this was about her, not me.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Men can be such idiots.”

“Such language from a submissive,” he smiled.

“Hey, I’m submissive to Ethan, not you.” She grinned and took a drink. “Seriously, this is about both of you. She needs to know what’s going on in your head just as much as you need to know what’s going on in hers. Relationships are a two way street.”

He shook his head. “Relationship? No, this is purely me showing her the ropes. Nothing else.”

Sam raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure she knows this? I certainly get the idea, from the way you’re talking, that you’re beginning something emotional.”

He looked down a few seconds and said, “Okay, maybe I don’t know what it is, but I’m not planning on a relationship.”

“Not planning on it, but if it happens, will you let it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I need time to think.”

“I’ve never seen you this serious, so at least I know you’re thinking about it. The big thing is to be open and honest with Cassie, though. Right? You need to tell her about yourself, too.”

“Yeah yeah.” He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and leaned forward. “She asked if she could watch me with Cam. I told her I’d have to think about it. Do you think she’ll freak if she sees us in action?”

“Are you worried about her freaking because of the guy-on-guy action, or because of the BDSM parts?”

He thought about it a few seconds. “Both?”

“I don’t think you have to worry about the first. She’s been around her dad and his partner a lot. In fact, she has this idea that gay partners are more likely to stay together than straight, married people.”

Frisco thought a few seconds and said, “Because her mom’s on her third marriage, and her dad is still with the man he left his family for.”

Sam nodded and Frisco looked pained. “I really don’t want to get caught up in someone’s neurosis.”

“You’ll have to deal with history and baggage no matter who you end up with, Frisco. It’s part of forming a relationship with someone. What are Cameron’s triggers?”

“His stepdad used to lock him in a closet in total darkness — not even any light around the doorframe. He’s fine in a cage with a nightlight, but he can’t be put somewhere there isn’t light, and can’t be blindfolded.”

“Have you ever taken on someone to train who didn’t have at least one thing you had to sidestep and work around?”

He thought a few moments, opened his mouth as if he’d thought of someone, then closed it when he remembered their issue. “No.”

* * * *

Sam saw clients the rest of the day, and when Cassie finally called she had to let it go to voicemail, but managed to text her between clients to let her know she’d call when she left work.

“We have an hour before class.” Sam told Cassie when they could finally talk. “Do you want to come to the house for a nice long chat, or just talk on the phone and see each other at the dojo?”

“I’m not sure if I’m coming to class.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know where Frisco and I are with things, and…” She stopped and started again. “I don’t want anyone to know there’s anything going on between us.”

“Then you need to be talking to Frisco instead of me, don’t you?”

Cassie groaned. “You weren’t kidding about the whole
completely and totally honest
thing, were you? Shit, he wanted to know details I really didn’t want to give.”

“Yeah, I remember the first time a Dom made me admit how much I enjoyed the spanking he’d given me. It was so hard. Impossibly hard. Now, I don’t think anything of it.”

“Really? It gets easier to talk about this stuff?”

“Yes. Way easier. Hang up, call Frisco, and tell him you’re nervous about letting everyone know ya’ll spent the night together when the two of you haven’t figured things out yet. My bet is he’ll feel the same way.”

Ethan was home when she pulled into the driveway, and the house smelled like an Italian restaurant when she walked in. She went straight to the kitchen and was surprised to see the table set and her husband pulling something from the oven.

“Wow, I’m impressed. It looks good. What is it?”

“My grandfather’s spaghetti sauce, but we’ll put it over spaghetti squash instead of pasta. Did you talk to Frisco and Cassie?”

“Frisco came by and we had lunch, but I only spoke with Cassie a few minutes on the phone. Things went fine, they watched the sunrise from Lookout Mountain together, and who knows whether it’ll just be him introducing her, or a relationship will form.”

Ethan poured the sauce into a bowl and settled large helpings of spaghetti squash onto both plates before motioning Sam to sit. “Good. How was the rest of your day?”

Sam felt her brow wrinkle. “Decent. How was yours, and why are you home early?”

“I’m home early because I’m the boss, and I’ve trained my men well enough I can leave early when the notion strikes me.” He shrugged. “You know, as long as no one is sick and we haven’t overbooked ourselves.”

Sam grinned. “What’s on your mind?”

“You know me too well. We talked about armbinder training during our honeymoon.”

Sam’s heart skipped into double-time. “Yes, a little.” She looked forward to him training her towards another goal, but also dreaded the process.

“I think it’s time to start.”

“Can we wait until after dinner?”

He chuckled. “Smart ass. You know what I mean. We need to lay out the ground rules and decide on a plan of action.”

“I’m pretty sure you mean
you
need to decide on a plan of action so
you
can lay out the ground rules and let me know what to expect.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what I said.” He responded with a playful grin.

Sam laughed. “Okay, sure. We’ll go with that. When do you plan to start?”

“We’ve been invited to Tyler and Viv’s house Friday night, along with Kirsten and Master James.”

Sam nodded. “And you’re going to let Master James give you pointers on the best way to get where we want to go?”

“Oh, no, he’s already given me pointers, and I’ve done the research. Your first night will be Friday night. It’s a play party.”

Sam nodded as she began to understand how things had changed. With their new contract he was no longer required to negotiate, as he’d had to do before her anal training.

“No contract to sign and nothing for me to agree to,” she said, “because you don’t need my consent anymore.”

He swallowed his food, took a drink of water, and said, “Correct, my dear wife. Your ass isn’t the only part of you that’s mine. I’d also like you to refrain from orgasming until Friday night.”

* * * *

The couple made it to the dojo a few minutes before class started, and Sam didn’t get a chance to check in with Frisco or Cassie. However, both left as soon as class was over, which she hoped meant they‘d talk some more.